A big issue right now in the world of operating systems - especially Linux - is Microsoft's requirement that all Windows 8 machines ship with UEFI's secure boot enabled, with no requirement that OEMs implement it so users can turn it off. This has caused some concern in the Linux world, and considering Microsoft's past and current business practices and the incompetence of OEMs, that's not unwarranted. CNet's Ed Bott decided to pose the issue to OEMs. Dell stated is has plans to include the option to turn secure boot off, while HP was a bit more vague about the issue.

Basically so far we have a screenshot from Micrsoft with the option actually being shown.

Dell says they are going to support it (because you know they also sell servers and Businesses might want to use Windows 7 instead of Windows 8 on desktops).

AMI are saying "We recommend not being dicks and having the option".

Also what Manufacturer is their right mind are going to stop you from installing an older version of Windows ... they would loose all their Business customers instantly.

Worst comes to worst ... I suspect you can reflash with a compatible BIOS/UEFI (whatever you call it) ... for that chipset ... I have done this before and stopped silly ram limitations etc.

I think Ed Botts comments are completely correct ... he has even shown evidence in the article that most of this is FUD (the GRUB not installing stuff). Remember Redhat have as much of an Agenda as any other tech company.

Also Manufacturers aren't going to do this because the EU would f--k em.

They mean FreeDOS. I'm not joking; it's a real option. You can configure some machines with either Windows or FreeDOS.

Last time I tried configuring an HP machine with FreeDOS, the configurator wouldn't let me select the option to add the Windows and Centrino stickers, and apparently, there was a bunch of hardware which relied on those stickers to work because the configurator would tell me to add the stickers before adding the hardware.

It was quite comical. I'm not sure if HP still does that since I have written them off.